Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Climate tragedy

I just got this in an email:

Causes and effects
Nature tells an urgent story about global warming and climate change
By Peter Gwillim Kreitler

[Episcopal Life] Everyone is talking about it, magazines are featuring stories about what to do about it, but still much is not being said about global warming and climate change. When we really listen to nature, the story becomes more urgent and challenging by the week.

The kittiwakes, skuas, arctic terns and guillemots -- magnificent shorebirds that nest in the cliffs of Scotland -- no longer can feed their young, lamented the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The warming of the North Sea by 1 degree has forced the bait fish to move north to find colderwater.

It's not a challenge for the human family, because we just build bigger and more far-ranging fishing fleets. However, the range of birds is predicated upon evolution, and they can not, even if they choose to, coax a few more miles out of their weary wings. With the birds no longer able to reach the sand eels, their young are not able to be fed, and extinction is a very real possibility. Even former Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in on this story and commented that it's "a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power that it radically alters human existence."

Full story

This simply breaks my heart. What must it be like for those poor birds who can't understand why their food supply has suddenly disappeared? We humans have much to answer for come Judgment Day.

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